


Wind and Words

by missgreeneinthlibrary



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Endgame Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Jon Snow is King in the North, Jon and Sansa are Cousins, Post Season 8 JonSa, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Season 8 Therapy Session
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-06-26 00:37:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19757005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgreeneinthlibrary/pseuds/missgreeneinthlibrary
Summary: Post 8x06 true to series ending. Jon returns to wall to live out his days as a brother of the Night's Watch, but the North knows know king but the king in the North who's name is Jon Snow, and the North's Queen knows no other king either. In the wise words of Maester Aemon: "We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A woman ready to wage war on the unsullied for the safe return of Jon Snow, would not leave him forgotten at the Wall.

_You shall take no wife…_

Jon dismounted in the yard of Castle Black after a month North of the Wall, helping Tormund and the wildlings reestablish camps in the inhospitable wild. He body ached from the cold, but the cold was home and felt like the appropriate repayment for the man who slayed the Dragon Queen who loved him. His brothers had taken to calling him the Queenslayer. At first he'd thought it was in mockery, but he'd since recognized the awe in their eyes.

While the Unsullied and Dothraki might have demanded justice for their slain queen, his own people didn't condemn him for the actions he'd taken. They recognized the ugly truth that he’d done a terrible deed for the greater good. While he hated himself for it, hated those who had left him with no other choice, including Daenerys, he knew in his heart that if he could go back, he would do the same thing over again.

"Queenslayer." Peg, a new addition to the Night’s Watch, a man with a wide, flat nose and more brawn than brain called to him. "You've got a visitor."

A visitor. Jon frowned at this. He couldn't imagine who would come to visit him. Arya had gone to sail off the edge of the known world and the rest of the world had sent him away in the hopes that time would simply forget the true born son of Rhagar Targaryan and slayer of Daenerys Targaryan, mother of dragons.

Jon didn’t much mind being forgotten. After all, the time for dragons had ended. The Targaryen name would die with him. It was better that way.

He passed off the reigns to Peg who took them and patted the horse amiably.

”Where?” Jon asked.

"Your chambers," Peg said.

Jon frowned at this but wordlessly went to investigate.

He entered his long neglected chambers and found a hooded figure kneeling at his hearth, building a fire.

Upon hearing his entrance, the figure rose and turned to face him, lowering her hood and revealing a head of flaming hair that always made his heart quicken in his chest.

"Sansa." He said, forgetting himself momentarily. Quickly he dropped to one knee in respect. "Your Grace."

"Don't be a fool, Jon." Sansa said, "There's no need for that."

Slowly, Jon rose to his feet and they stared at each other for a long moment. She looked well, far better than she had that day on the docks of King’s Landing when she’d asked him for forgiveness. 

Jon's expression split into a wide smile and he threw his arms around her. He held her tight until the cold that had long infused with his bones began to thaw. 

"Long live the Queen in the North." He murmured and then kissed her forehead.

"I'm not officially here, Jon." She said softly, leaning into his touch as he caressed her cheek.

He frowned at that. "Why did you come?"

"Tyrion… he sent me a raven. He told me about the conversation you two shared that day… before…” She trailed off, reluctant to remind him of the deed that weighed so heavily on his heart and mind. "Jon… I have to ask. Why did you kill Daenerys?"

He shook his head and stepped away from her, not wanting to be reminded of the sin that had sent him to his exile.

"Jon, please…” She reached out and took his hand.

He swallowed hard. "She wouldn't see reason. She would have killed anyone who opposed her."

"Anyone…" Sansa said studying his face. "Or me?"

Jon looked away, uncomfortable under her gaze. "Would you ever have bent the knee?"

"You know the answer." Sansa said, her tone even and unreadable.

"Love is the death of duty.”

“Tyrion said duty is the death of love.” Sansa said.

“He was wrong.”

"Jon… why did you kill her?" Sansa pressed.

"You know the answer." He said, meeting her gaze.

She gave him a wavering smile and lifted his hand to her lips, pressing them to his palm.

"I do.”

She drew him close and brushed her lips against his, tentatively as though asking permission.

“Forgive me?” She murmured against his lip, the taste of her warm and sweet.

He knew he should push her away. Raised as her brother, he shouldn’t want her in this way, not even if it was no longer considered wrong. Besides, his punishment for his crimes was a celibate life. While he knew many of the Night’s Watch held to a rather loose interpretation of the vows, he knew that was not the intention when the punishment was placed upon him. 

He was not meant to have joy after the wrongs he’d done. He was not supposed to have _her_.

“Sansa…” He started to protest, but her hand went to his cock, teasing him through the fabric of his breeches. He couldn’t hold back the moan that rose in his chest.

“Forgive me.” She whispered, the words less a plea and more a command the second time.

He rested his forehead against hers and nodded slightly.

He’d forgive her anything. He’d forgive her for being the thought that steadied his hand as he sheathed a dagger in his queen’s heart. He’d forgive her for making him feel things that his mind told him were wrong. He’d forgive her for making him love her more than honor, duty, or oath.

He closed his eyes as she unfastened his breeches and slipped her nimble and slightly chilly fingers in to caress his hard and throbbing cock.

“This isn’t…” He start to protest, but she caught his mouth in a kiss that he couldn’t help but return. Though he knew the many reasons why this should be wrong, it did not feel wrong to kiss her.

He lifted her onto his desk and she gathered up her skirts as he pressed closer, between her pale and creamy thighs.

He found her mound free of small clothes and realized this had been her intention from the start. The Queen of the North had come all this way for him, to fuck him. He looked into her eyes, wondering when exactly was the moment this desire between them had begun to build. He thought perhaps it started for him the very moment she was returned to him at this very castle from the abuse of the Bolton bastard, but it wasn’t until he’d learned the truth of his parentage that he began to admit it to himself. It wasn’t the fact that Daenerys was his aunt that had caused him to recoil from her advances, it was the fact that Sansa Stark was not and had never been his sister.

“Are you sure?” He whispered, pressing at her entrance but ready to move away and pretend this was all a beautiful dream.

She wrapped her legs around him and forced him to enter her with a single thrust. He groaned at the feel of her tight and hot around him.

“Gods…” He took a moment to regain control before setting a slow, deliberate rhythm.

Sansa tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him in for another desperate kiss. She moved with him as his intensity built. He nipped at her throat, enjoying the sounds she made as he touched and teased her, wishing he’d taken the time to strip her bare so he had access to more of her perfect flesh.

He interlaced his fingers with hers has he drove into her over and over, He felt her tighten around him and he thrusted harder and harder, making her cry out in pleasure so loud that he was sure his brother’s would have little doubt as to what transpired behind close doors. 

He could feel himself losing control, but she came and pushed him over the edge. He spilled his seed inside her and froze the moment he realized what he’d done. He started to pull out, though he knew it was already too late. Panic began to build in his chest.

She reached up and took his face in her hands, looking into his eyes, her expression soft and loving.

“Stop.” She whispered. “Stay with me.”

“What if?”

“I’m a queen.” She looked up into his eyes. “Any child I bear will be a Stark.”

He nodded, the fear and shame of leaving a child to grow up burdened with the last name Snow subsiding.

She spent that night in his arms and every night after for a full fortnight, before duty called her back to Winterfell. His brothers said nothing and his Lord Commander turned a blind eye. It seemed as though they considered it the least they could do for the condemned savior of Westeros.

_...But what is honor compared to a woman's love?_


	2. Chapter 2

_You shall father no children…_

When Jon received the raven from Winterfell, he was on his horse in minutes. He did not ask the Lord Commander's leave, but he doubted the man would send anyone after him. He would return and he was sure the Lord Commander knew it. He was, after all, a man of honor. At least… in most things.

Despite riding hard and changing horses at every opportunity, the journey took over two weeks. When he did finally reach the castle, it was the dead of night. He woke a grumbling stable boy to brush down his steed. He did not wait to be announced or welcomed. Though exiled, this would always be his home for it sheltered his heart. He knew his way even through dark passages. 

The two members of the Queensguard on watch saw him, but made no attempt to stop him as he let himself into the Queen’s chambers. They bowed their heads to him as he passed in respect as much as greeting.

It was a heavy weight to be lauded for an act that brought him sorrow every day. He swallowed hard and pushed away the thought. Now was not the time to be weighed down by ghosts.

He found Sansa sitting beside the fire, a babe at her breast. He knelt by her side and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder.

She leaned over and pressed her forehead to his.

"It's a boy." She whispered, slowly shifting the child from her arms to his.

His heart pounded harder than it ever had in battle and the feeling of the small, fragile body in his arms.

"What did you call him?” He whispered, not wanting to wake the small being. A boy. His boy.

"Robb Stark." Sansa said with a small smile.

Jon's eyes stung with tears. Not Snow. Not Targaryen. A wolf. A happy laugh bubbled up from inside him, the first time he’d laughed in longer than he could remember. It was right that this child, their child should be a Stark. It was not meet for a wolf to be alone. 

He brushed his lips against Sansa’s forehead. 

“Forgive me?” He murmured against her skin, hating that she’d borne their son alone while he’d been at the wall. Hating that he could never claim her or the perfect babe in his arms as his own.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” She caught his lips and kissed away his sorrows.

They held each other through the night, enjoying their little family. Within the walls of the Queen’s chambers, true names and titles, honor and dishonor, duty and shame, held no meaning. Within those for walls, they were the Starks of Winterfell, and the pack was united and strong.

_...But what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms?_


	3. Chapter 3

_You shall hold no lands…_

“It’s good to see you, your grace.” Yet another lord said to Jon, despite Jon’s many corrections and insistence that he was neither the Lord of Winterfell nor King in the North.

He was no dragon and no wolf. He was just a lowly crow. 

Still the Northern Lords bowed and called him “Defender of the North” when they came to Winterfell present gifts and pledges of loyalty to the new wolf.

No one questioned the Stark surname being given to a child that was clearly a bastard. No one asked after the parentage of the child with silky black curls and the Stark looks in the arms of a mother who was all Tully by appearance. Neither did anyone ask or seem to mind that the chambers prepared for Jon went unused or that he dined privately with the queen every night.

Six months after returning to Winterfell, Jon sat before the five with his precious cub. The little cherub had perfected the art of sitting up on his own, but would topple back over each time Jon leaned forward to tickle him.

He heard the door open and looked back to find Sansa watching over them, her expression soft but her eyes filled with sadness.

“What is it?” He asked, scooping up their giggling son and resting the boy on his hip as he walked over to the beautiful redhead. He reached up and caressed her cheek. She turned into his touch and closed her eyes.

“You’ve had a raven.” She said. “From the wall.”

“I have to go back.” Jon said, not needing to read the message to know the content.

“The Unsullied have sent an envoy to… ensure your sentence is being served.” Sansa explained.

Jon nodded, he wasn’t surprised that Greyworm would not be satisfied with Bran’s word that justice would be served. He couldn’t blame the soldier. He would be no different if a man drove a dagger into Sansa’s heart. No… he would have been different. He would have killed the man, the consequences be damned.

“When?” He asked.

“You’ll have to leave before the week’s end to beat them.” Sansa said, reaching out and taking Robb from him. She kissed the top of the boy's head and he cooed with delight.

The impending separation weighed heavy over the meal they shared and added a somber tone to the story Sansa read aloud as they laid Robb down to sleep in the nursery off of the Queen’s chambers. Even though the North had offered nothing but support and loyalty to their queen, Sansa still didn’t trust the care of her child to anyone besides herself and Jon. There were whispers about her unusual mothering habits, as most highborn ladies turned the care of their children over to nurses, but no one tells a queen what she can and cannot do.

That night, as they made love, a tear escaped the corner of Sansa’s eye and Jon kissed it away.

“I’ll be back.” He promised as he held her in his arms after. “Where we go, we go together.”

She took his hand and placed it over her stomach. “Can you be back in eight months?”

Jon caught her face in his hand and turned her gaze to meet his. “You’re?”

She smiled and nodded. He pulled her in for a kiss and then moved down to press soft, tender kisses to her soft, flat stomach. But not flat for long.

He promised himself that she would not be alone when this child came.

* * *

Within days of returning to the wall, he was itching to again ride south. Not even a summit with the wildlings was enough to ease the want to return to Winterfell.

He told Tormund of Robb and the child to come. 

“Seems that pecker of yours does the job.” Tormund chuckled. “Even if it’s a bit small.”

Jon laughed. “I’ve yet to have a complaint.”

Tormund roared with mirth and clapped him hard on the back.

* * *

Once the envoy from the Unsullied was safely away, the Lord Commander summoned Jon to his chambers.

“Queenslayer.” The Lord Commander said with respect, but the title made Jon bow his head in shame.

“Yes, M’Lord?” Jon asked.

“I have a letter I need delivered to the Queen in the North. It’s of the utmost importance it falls in no hands but hers.” The Lord Commander said.

“You can trust me.” Jon assured him.

“I know I can.”

“The letter?” Jon asked and was rewarded with a thin letter sealed with the Lord Commanders signet.

It was almost three weeks before he was able to place that note in Sansa’s hands. When she opened it, it read _Don’t hurry back_.

* * *

The midwife tried to send Jon away when Sansa’s pains began, but he refused. He held her as their second child came into the world, squalling and red faced and followed in quick succession by a twin.

Two girls, one with the red hair of a Tully and the other dark. 

“Catelyn and Lyanna.” Sansa suggested as they held the two babes with Robb asleep between them. “For my mother and for yours.”

Jon’s heart felt close to bursting as he kissed her forehead and cheeks. He couldn’t imagine loving the woman who shared her bed with him more. But as the years went on, he was proved wrong as she bore him three more sons, Eddard, Rickon, and Rhaegar.

By the time Rickon was born, the Lord Commander named Jon Snow the representative of the Night’s Watch to the Queen of the North, allowing that he need only report back to the wall once a year.

After Rhaegar, Jon thought they would have no more, until the eve of Robb’s eighth birthday when Sansa whispered in his ear that she was again with child.

When her time came, she bore him one last beautiful girl, this one fair of hair. 

“Daenerys?” Jon asked in a tentative whispered.

Sansa considered it for a moment and then nodded. “Daenerys.”

Jon kissed her forehead in silent thanks, feeling a small degree of peace for his crimes of ten years before. _Does it feel right?_ He’d asked Tyrion. _Ask me again in ten years._ He looked down as his newborn sleeping daughter.

Late that night, he wrote a note which he sent South by raven to King’s Landing. Ten years of peace and prosperity. Countless lives spared. The wheel finally broken. It still didn't feel good, it would never feel good. He’d forever carry the weight of killing a woman who both loved and trusted him, but with the blessing of hindsight, he didn’t regret his choice.

He wondered briefly, what the imp would think when he unrolled the note and found only three words:

_It was right._

But he didn’t wonder long.

He had too many blessings in the present to live in the sorrows of the past. 

When he returned to the Queen’s chambers he found Sansa and their youngest asleep. He watched them for a long moment. If there was something after this life, he hoped Daenerys knew he wished there’d been another way. But he’d come to see wishing and regretting as two different things.

And though the winter winds blew cold outside their walls, his heart was warm and full of hope, because Winterfell was once again filled with Starks. As it should be.

After all, there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.

_…But we are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love._


	4. Chapter 4

_You shall wear not crown and win no glory…_

If the 6 kingdoms to the South objected to the Queen of the North's interpretation of Jon Snow's exile, they chose to turn a blind eye. After all, the North did not recognize the authority of King Bran the Broken. The North recognized no king but the King in the North, whose name was Snow though his children were Starks. 

Jon spent the next ten years as he had the previous ten, in Winterfell with the woman he loved. He would spend his days in the yard teaching swordplay and archery to the children while Sansa ruled the North and ensured that all seven of their brood had a proper education. 

Their nights, though, those they spent together. And on the rare occasions when Jon had to go to the wall, he was greeted on his return so sweetly he couldn’t regret the going.

The next generation of Starks grew up knowing nothing but peace, with no whispers of war or rebellion to trouble their childhood.

When news of the Hand of the King’s passing reached Winterfell, Sansa traveled south to pay her final respects to the best of her husbands. Jon ached to watch her go South, hating more that he was unable to accompany her. While his sentence was all but forgotten in the North, he did not think it would be wise to press the South’s blind eye.

Several months later, Sansa returned with Tyrion’s son, a man almost grown, named Jaime. He was a beautiful youth that favored his long dead uncle far more than his actual father. He came with an offer of marriage for Catelyn Stark, so that there might never again be a cause for strife between Lannister and Stark, as they would be of one family.

Jon was tempted to object, but he saw the way his daughter looked at the young Lannister and he could not bring himself to say no.

And as the years pressed on, the Stark children spread across the other six kingdoms. Lyanna’s wild northern beauty had been the only thing able to tear the Lord of Storm’s end’s gaze from the Western horizon where his long lost Stark love had sailed off the map. It was fitting that it should be another girl with a touch of the wolf that tempted him into marriage, thereby fulfilling a long broken and delayed promise of a union between Stark and Baratheon. Eddard married into the Tully’s in the Riverlands, restoring the bond between Sansa and her Tully kinsmen. Rickon went to visit his cousins in the Vale and his heart was stolen by one of his fair cousins, the eldest daughter of Robin Arryn. Rhaegar rode to Dorne in search of adventure and stayed for a Martell bride. Daenerys, having no interest in marriage, traveled to the Iron Islands to learn the ways of the drowned men, restoring peace between the Ironborn and the North as Yara, having no children of her own, eventually named the girl with a Northern name and a Valyrian face her successor.

Only Robb, the eldest and heir to Winterfell, never traveled South. He was content in the North and exploring beyond the wall with his father.

It wasn’t until a maid from Tarth, Joanna Storm, an unusually tall woman with the golden mane of a lion and sapphire blue eyes came North to pledge herself to the services of the Queen in the North at her mother’s behest, that Robb learned the allure of the South.

The two were married beneath a weirwood tree before the old gods and the new. And as her dowery, Joanna provided Robb with a sword of Valyrian that had belonged to the father she never knew. And as the two young warriors rode beyond the wall and cultivated the established peace with the wildlings, the two halves of the great sword Ice were restored to the North and used in its defense.

And still the years soldiered on. 

With all the Stark children grown and moved on, there was an emptiness in Winterfell. Jon saw the tinge of sadness in Sansa’s eyes at times. And at those times, he’d take her to the Godswood where they would sit beneath the weirwood tree in each other’s arms and hold on to each other. Their pack had once again shrunk down to two, though this time the cause had been joyous. It seemed every few weeks they would receive a raven with news of another grandchild, though white had only just begun to touch their hair.

Theirs had not been a life without great sadness, but it had also borne with that sadness great joy. Just as the long winter eventually ended in summer, their tragedies had ended in rebirth and love.

He pressed a kiss to his winter love’s forehead.

“Forgive me?” Sansa asked for the first time in nearly thirty years, the first time since she’d came to him at the wall and gave him back his life.

He didn’t have to ask what she asked forgiveness for. There was only one crime for which he’d never granted her pardon. All those years ago, in this very spot, he’d told her his true parentage and sworn her to secrecy. A secret she’d exposed which in no small part led to the moment that forced him to end the life of his queen… to save the realm and himself, but mostly to save Sansa.

He took her face in his hands and looked into her, searching them as he considered a lifetime of memories. Mistakes and regrets. Wrongs righted and rights wronged. Good and bad and so much that fell into the gray area in between the two. One constant through it all. Her. She’d been by his side and his reason to fight and to survive through so many nightmares and sorrows. She was more than his queen and more than his wife. She was his very reason for carrying on when he felt sure he had nothing left in the world.

But forgiveness…

He kissed her forehead tenderly. 

“It was right.” He assured her.

It was not forgiveness, but it was all he had to give. A shadow crossed her face but she nodded. She was not forgiven because he could not forgive himself either. They’d both contributed to the deaths of both the guilty and the innocent. They'd committed great wrongs for the right reasons. They couldn't undo or even regret those choices, so they would just have to live with them.

_… But that is our great glory, and our great tragedy._


	5. Chapter 5

_For this night and all the night’s to come._

Jon kept vigil at Sansa’s bedside day and night, only eating when prompted by Catelyn. The Lady of Casterly Rock had ridden day an night when the raven had reached her of her mother’s failing health. A woman nearing fifty in her own right, the long journey North had not been an easy one, but she made it without complaint.

In the weeks following, the rest of the Stark children had gathered to Winterfell. Even Robb and Joanna who disappeared North of the wall for months at a time had been contacted and returned home to say their final farewells.

Jon brushed silver strands from the face for his beloved as her breath rattled heavily in her chest. The rich auburn of her youth had all but disappeared, replaced almost entirely by beautiful silver and white as pure as Ghost’s coat had once been. As pure as the fresh snow drifting down outside.

She’d been leaving him slowly for some time now. He’d noticed it in the way she ate less and less, the way she grimaced in pain when he helped her up after their daily walks to the heart tree. He’d tried to ignore it, but he had known she was ill and from the grim expressions that passed between her and the Maester, he had known it was serious.

He’d chosen to ignore it. To kiss her more tenderly and hold her more tightly. To will away everything else for as long as he could.

Then came the morning when she could no longer rise from their bed.

For more than fifty years, she had shared her bed and life with him. She shared her days and nights and given him everything he’d never imagined being able to have after being sentenced back to a lonely life in the Night’s Watch. For fifty years, she’d given him her heart and body, bore him seven children, and ruled the North with him by her side. Fifty years saw their children married and those little wolves they’d brought up in the ways of House Stark went on to have children of their own. Now even their great grandchildren were nearly grown.

And still, it wasn’t enough time. There would never be enough time to love her. In their lives, she’d been his sister, cousin, lover, and friend. She’d been by his side almost from the very start of his second life and he’d never imagined she’d leave him before it ended.

“Father…” Lyanna whispered, her voice as soft as her mother’s kisses had always been. “Come away. You need rest.”

Jon shook his head. There had not been a night in their life together when he was in Winterfell that he did not share her bed and he did not intend for that to change now.

“She might wake.” Jon said. “I don’t want her to be alone if she wakes.”

A pained expression crossed the face of the several years widowed Lady of Storm’s End. “Father… Maester Selwig says she will not wake again.”

Jon stubbornly took Sansa’s hand, the skin papery thin to the touch and almost translucent in the candlelight.

“He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know her. Not like I do.” Jon said.

Lyanna smiled sadly, tears sparkling in her eyes, but she did not press the matter. Instead, she pressed a kiss to the top of her father’s white-haired head and slipped from the chambers.

Jon rested his head on Sansa’s chest and let her ragged breaths lull him to sleep.

He woke to fingers winding lightly through his curls and turned his head to look up into bright blue eyes that shined as lovely as ever.

“Jon…” She whispered, her voice brittle from disuse.

He leaned in and kissed her. “Hush… save your strength.”

She gave him a look because they both knew that would buy her little time.

“I wish…” She croaked.

“Yes?” 

“Take me to the godswood?” 

Jon thought to object because it would surely be too cold for her, but stopped himself. It was a little late for anything as trivial as freezing cold to be a concern. He wrapped her in furs and picked her up. Carrying her should have been beyond his strength, but she weighed so little now.

It was slow going and he had to take many breaks to rest as his heart protested the exertion. He could have called a servant or any of his four sons, but he didn’t want anyone else to intrude on these precious moments with his love. 

When they reached the godswood, he settled them both beneath the Weirwood tree. Sansa rested her head on his chest, her gaze lifted to the heavens.

“It’s been a good life.” He murmured in her hair.

He could hear her ragged breathing ease and slow slightly.

“Forgive me?” 

His heart ached in his chest at her words. Over fifty years had lent clarity to his actions in King’s Landing, when he’d slain Daenerys Stormborn, first of her name, betraying her with a kiss. It was right. It had been the right thing to do. Daenerys had been unfit to take the throne and always had been. Sansa simply had the foresight to see it before the rest of them. How could he fault her for doing what she could to attempt to stop the madness and destruction that had ensued?

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, closing his eyes to relish the moment. He was a lucky man. To love her for a day would have made him the luckiest man alive, but to love her and have her love in return for half a century… it was more than he could have asked for... and still not enough.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” He whispered.

Her arms tightened around him, and he could feel a strange desperation in her. “Forgive me.”

He thought of the forgiveness he’d denied her in King’s Landing as they bid farewell for what he’d thought would be the last time. It had been too fresh then. The wound too raw and real. Even thirty years later, he could not shake the weight of it away. He’d told himself it was a guilt he would have to live with, one they both would have to live with.

But it was not a guilt she needed to die with.

He gathered her close, ignoring the sudden silence of her stilled breath. 

“I forgive you.” He murmured, his voice cracking in heart splintering sorrow.

He held her close to keep her warm and closed his eyes to dream of spring.

_Wind and words._

_And now his watch is ended._

_Wind and words._


End file.
